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Bad News In Jasper

BucketSitR

By BucketSitR
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kepdawg

kepdawg

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:cry:

This sucks!

http://www.jasperisd.net/

The JISD family mourns the loss of Coach Lloyd Weatherspoon. Coach "Spoon", teacher and track coach at Jasper High School, died this morning at his home. If you would like to share a memory or leave a message for the family, please click here: [email protected].

The Lloyd Weatherspoon Memorial Cross Country Meet will be held at Jasper High School on Saturday, September 16.

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Guest GoStangs

Guest GoStangs

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I'm sorry to hear that. From what all I've read (here and on the 3ADL), it sounds like he was a great person. He certainly left a legacy and made a positive impact on a lot of people.

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Morgan

Morgan

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yea im a junior at JHS and wen i got to school this morning everybody was crying and looking sad and wen i heard the news, i couldnt believe it.....he was my health teacher last year and i was shocked to hear he died........he was a great man......he will be missed.........RIP Coach Spoon, you will be missed!!!

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RETIREDFAN1

RETIREDFAN1

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09/13/2006

Jasper track & field coach dies of heart attack at 52

By: CHRISTOPHER DABE , The Beaumont Enterprise

Scott Eslinger/The Enterprise

Jasper High School track coach Lloyd Weatherspoon stands by as Jordan Patton passes during a May 2005 practice in Jasper.

On Tuesday, Bryan Bronson recalled a time when Jasper track and field coach Lloyd Weatherspoon could have left for another high school.

It had better facilities, perhaps making his job a bit easier, but he didn't go.

"He liked Jasper too much to ever want to leave," said Bronson, a former Jasper sprinter who later achieved world-class status.

Bronson said the window of opportunity opened after Weatherspoon coached Jasper to a UIL boys track and field championship in 1991. Instead, Weatherspoon stayed and the school won another title six years later.

All told, Jasper won 19 district, five regional and three state championships in 24 seasons under Weatherspoon, who died Tuesday morning at his home in Jasper. He was 52.

A Jasper Police Department spokesperson said Weatherspoon died of a heart attack in his sleep.

He is survived by his wife, Lillie; their son, Lloyd III, 25; and a stepdaughter, Nakia, 33, and her husband and three children.

"One thing he told me that I'll never forget when I left the house is that I'm not only representing my God, but I'm representing my parents, my school and my community," said Lloyd III, who now is working on his master's degree in theology at Baylor University.

"I've always stayed in touch with him," said Bronson, who competed at the 1996 summer Olympic games in Atlanta. "The last time I talked with him, he was talking about retiring either this year or next year."

Former athletes and colleagues remembered Weatherspoon for his coaching and contributions away from the track surface.

"Everybody knew about Coach Spoon's barbecue," said Tony Allen, a former Jasper sprinter who completed his first season as Weatherspoon's assistant on the track and field team last spring. "He was always volunteering to help in the community at different events."

Weatherspoon was born and raised in Pineland and played football at Prairie View A&M. He began at Jasper in 1979 as an assistant football and basketball coach and started coaching track and field in 1983. He coached 25 high school All-American track athletes and dozens of others went on to compete in college.

"He was one of the better coaches I ever had," said Bronson, who anchored the school's since-broken national record-setting 400 relay of 39.9 seconds in 1991, the year Jasper won its second state title under Weatherspoon.

"We didn't necessarily have the best facilities, but he always found a way around that."

Allen, a sophomore when Weatherspoon took over, was among the first boys he coached in track and field.

"He was a person who knew how to get along with kids," said Allen, also a member of Weatherspoon's first state championship team in 1985. "He could relate to kids at the time. He taught us that track is a day-by-day experience."

Weatherspoon also had been Jasper's head cross country coach in recent years. A cross country meet scheduled for Saturday at the school will go as planned, but will be named in Weatherspoon's honor, Jasper Athletic Director Danny Lauve said.

"We're going to call it the Lloyd Weatherspoon Memorial Cross Country Meet," Lauve said. "We originally cancelled it, but Lloyd's wife said to go ahead with it."

A girls volleyball match between Jasper and Orangefield was rescheduled from Tuesday to Thursday, and a match Thursday between Jasper and West Orange-Stark was moved to Friday, Lauve said.

"There isn't a dry eye in the school today," Lauve said Tuesday. "That should tell you what kind of impact he had here."

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